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Blogging Like a Hacker (2008)

tom.preston-werner.com

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Re: Blogging Like a Hacker (2008)

#31

Post by strogonoff »

Jekyll can be used for much more than blogging, too.

Ribose, for example, has a network of sites for its open-source initiatives[0] built on top of Jekyll. Sites are integrated with each other and also with Git repos of relevant software packages, pulling e.g. latest commit times & documentation in AsciiDoc at build time. Each site does have a blog/newsroll, but in the end is much more than that.

The implementation involves a gem-based theme with accompanying helper plugin, which are open source[1].

Going the static site route, on one hand, introduces new constraints—for example, build times become important—but on the other hand allows to build blazing-fast websites without having to worry as much about ongoing server maintenance. (Currently each site gets built on Travis CI and delivered via AWS S3/CF.)

Disclaimer: I work with Ribose currently and participated in Ribose Open development.

[0] See for example https://www.metanorma.com/, https://www.rnpgp.com/ or https://www.cryptode.com/

[1] https://github.com/riboseinc/jekyll-theme-open-project/

Re: Blogging Like a Hacker (2008)

#32

Post by andreyk »

I really like this quote from this article:

“I love writing. I get a kick out of sharing my thoughts with others. The act of transforming ideas into words is an amazingly efficient way to solidify and refine your thoughts about a given topic. “

So much so that it is quoted on my own Jekyll-based personal website (http://www.andreykurenkov.com/). I have set up 3 additional site since with Jekyll, all hosted on GitHub, and it's super easy every time.

Re: Blogging Like a Hacker (2008)

#33

Post by adventured »

mettamage wrote: post #28
bhaak wrote: post #2

I often remark that IT in general is a history-less space. I wonder if Tom would have developed Jekyll if he knew about Blosxom? Blosxom had its last release in the same month when Jekyll had its first. The blog post seems to imply that he came up with the idea and code for Jekyll all by himself. But also as he's a Ruby guy, it's likely he would have ported over the code and concepts to his own project.

Your comment gave me an idea. I'm not going to do it alone (I think), but someone should do it. Start a podcast/educational website on the history of tech. For anyone who wants to do it together and see if it's a fun project to pursue, email me :) (in my profile) Or are there already podcasts on it? If so, I haven't seen it appear on HN.

There are some, for example the Internet History Podcast is overall tremendous:

http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/

I'm not aware of anyone successfully doing a more expansive history of tech podcast (and actually filling it out).

Re: Blogging Like a Hacker (2008)

#34

Post by chmaynard »

greggman2 wrote: post #27
Eiriksmal wrote: post #3

Fascinating. For those who click to read the comments before the actual article, this is Mr. Preston-Werner's introduction of Jekyll, the Ruby static site generator, to the world. He lays out his reasons for creating the tech: >>>First, all my writing would be stored in a Git repository. This would ensure that I could try out different ideas and explore a variety of posts all from the comfort of my preferred editor a…

I switched to a static site gen and a git repo. I lost the ability to preview. Sure, if I'm at home I can run the build script, launch a simple server, navigate to the page on localhost but it's a long way from say wordpress (previous solution) where it was a much nicer experience to preview. Adding images into a post was also nicer. Just drag and drop instead of copy into folder, check into git, manaully type urls l…

> I lost the ability to preview.

Not really. You can keep the local server running and a browser window open. The server can be configured to regenerate the site as changes are made. Simply refresh the page to see your changes.

Re: Blogging Like a Hacker (2008)

#35

Post by Eiriksmal »

greggman2 wrote: post #27
Eiriksmal wrote: post #3

Fascinating. For those who click to read the comments before the actual article, this is Mr. Preston-Werner's introduction of Jekyll, the Ruby static site generator, to the world. He lays out his reasons for creating the tech: >>>First, all my writing would be stored in a Git repository. This would ensure that I could try out different ideas and explore a variety of posts all from the comfort of my preferred editor a…

I switched to a static site gen and a git repo. I lost the ability to preview. Sure, if I'm at home I can run the build script, launch a simple server, navigate to the page on localhost but it's a long way from say wordpress (previous solution) where it was a much nicer experience to preview. Adding images into a post was also nicer. Just drag and drop instead of copy into folder, check into git, manaully type urls l…

A markdown-based blog lets you preview, if you're typing into an editor that supports previewing markdown. I do my long-form writing in LibreOffice Writer (because Fedora), then the "blogging"/translating bit in PyCharm in a markdown file. PyCharm has a rich markdown previewer, so I can write short posts in it, without the translation step.

I'm not personally aware of a static site generator that supports drag-and-drop images, but nothing stops such an extension/plugin from existing. When I want to embed an image on my site, it goes into an /images/[year]/ folder and is referenced in the markdown file with the manually-typed partial URL, as you mentioned.

Re: Blogging Like a Hacker (2008)

#36

Post by arkokoley »

strogonoff wrote: post #31

Jekyll can be used for much more than blogging, too. Ribose, for example, has a network of sites for its open-source initiatives[0] built on top of Jekyll. Sites are integrated with each other and also with Git repos of relevant software packages, pulling e.g. latest commit times & documentation in AsciiDoc at build time. Each site does have a blog/newsroll, but in the end is much more than that. The implementation i…

True. Zense Dev (we are a student software development group based out of Bangalore, India) uses Jekyll to render its main website[0] which includes a blog, a list of projects, lists of events happening and a list of the members of the group. We even have member pages and the blog posts written by that member show up there.

[0] https://zense.co.in [1] http://zense.co.in/people/arkokoley

Re: Blogging Like a Hacker (2008)

#37

Post by greggman2 »

chmaynard wrote: post #34
greggman2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to a static site gen and a git repo. I lost the ability to preview. Sure, if I'm at home I can run the build script, launch a simple server, navigate to the page on localhost but it's a long way from say wordpress (previous solution) where it was a much nicer experience to preview. Adding images into a post was also nicer. Just drag and drop instead of copy into folder, check into git, manaully type urls l…

> I lost the ability to preview. Not really. You can keep the local server running and a browser window open. The server can be configured to regenerate the site as changes are made. Simply refresh the page to see your changes.

I have many machines I work from. So no that won't work as easy as a non-static site. Wordpress I can edit and post from my phone. Can't run the static site generator on my phone

Re: Blogging Like a Hacker (2008)

#38

Post by greggman2 »

Eiriksmal wrote: post #35
greggman2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to a static site gen and a git repo. I lost the ability to preview. Sure, if I'm at home I can run the build script, launch a simple server, navigate to the page on localhost but it's a long way from say wordpress (previous solution) where it was a much nicer experience to preview. Adding images into a post was also nicer. Just drag and drop instead of copy into folder, check into git, manaully type urls l…

A markdown-based blog lets you preview, if you're typing into an editor that supports previewing markdown. I do my long-form writing in LibreOffice Writer (because Fedora), then the "blogging"/translating bit in PyCharm in a markdown file. PyCharm has a rich markdown previewer, so I can write short posts in it, without the translation step. I'm not personally aware of a static site generator that supports drag-and-dr…

My blog uses many custom features not found in plain markdown so a simple markdown preview found in some editors isn't helpful for verifying the post will work correctly.

Re: Blogging Like a Hacker (2008)

#39

Post by Apaec »

bhaak wrote: post #2

I often remark that IT in general is a history-less space. I wonder if Tom would have developed Jekyll if he knew about Blosxom? Blosxom had its last release in the same month when Jekyll had its first. The blog post seems to imply that he came up with the idea and code for Jekyll all by himself. But also as he's a Ruby guy, it's likely he would have ported over the code and concepts to his own project.

I've seen this a lot in OSS. Virtuous developers will at least give credit.

Others will claim it was their own work, spice up the wording and build their own personal brand.

Could we refer to these cases as "plagiarism"? It's the proper definition after all. Forking is different as it relates to code, not ideas.

Re: Blogging Like a Hacker (2008)

#40

Post by bhaak »

Apaec wrote: post #39
bhaak wrote: post #2

I often remark that IT in general is a history-less space. I wonder if Tom would have developed Jekyll if he knew about Blosxom? Blosxom had its last release in the same month when Jekyll had its first. The blog post seems to imply that he came up with the idea and code for Jekyll all by himself. But also as he's a Ruby guy, it's likely he would have ported over the code and concepts to his own project.

I've seen this a lot in OSS. Virtuous developers will at least give credit. Others will claim it was their own work, spice up the wording and build their own personal brand. Could we refer to these cases as "plagiarism"? It's the proper definition after all. Forking is different as it relates to code, not ideas.

I mean that they actually don't know about the history.

You can see this in almost every discussion about computer science topics.

Look for example how many programmers are shit-talking about Java and they have no clue about certain design decisions back in the day.

Java was the language that made byte compilation and VMs mainstream. Together with XML (another heated topic) it liberated us from unnecessary binary data formats.

And even the language itself was a gift from the programming gods at a time when the most viable programming languages were C, C++, or Perl.

I will forever be thankful to Java for saving me from C++.

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